The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-07-27

Ia!r, aH1 ue SeTC IL 10 IHe Queeli a.
great joke; but old age is really no Joke
at all For the last forty years you have
been dreading that which ought to have
being an exhilaratioH. You say you must
fear the struggle at the moment the soul
and body part But millions have en-.
dured that moment, and why not we as
well! They got through with it, and SO
can we. Besides this, all medical men
agree in saying that there is probably no
struggle at all at the last moment-not SO
much pain as the prick Of pin, the seeming
signs Of distress being altogether involuntary.
But YOU say: "It is the uncertainty OF the
future Now, child of God, do not play the
infidel. After God has filed the Bible till 1t
can hold no more with the stories of the good
things ahead, better not talk about uncer-
tainties.
But you say: 81 cannot bear to think Of
parting from friends here" Il YOU are old
you have more friends in heaven than
here Just take the census. Take some
large sheet of paper and begin to record
the names Of those who have emigrated
to the other shore; the companions of your
school days, your early business aSsoci-
more recently went away. Can it be that
they have been gone SO long you do not
care any more about them and you do not
want their societyi Oh, no! There have
been days when you have felt that you
could not endure it another moment away
from their b.eSsel companionship They
have gone. You say you would not like
to bring them back to this world Of
trouble, even if you had the power. It
would not do to trust you. God would
not give you resurrection power. Before
tomorrow morning you would be rat
tling at the gates Of the cemetery, crying
to the departed "Come back to the cradle
where you slept! Come back to the hall
where you used to play! Come back to
the table where you used to sit !" and there
would be great burglary in heaven. No,
no! God will not trust you with resurrection
power, but he compromises the matter and
says: You cannot bring them where you
are" They are more lovely now than ever.
Were they beautiful here, they are more
beautiful there.
Besides that, it is more healthy there for
YOU than here, aged man: better climate
there than these hot summers and cold
winters and late springs: better hearing;
better eye-sight: more tonic in the air;
more perfume in tine bloom: more sweet
ness in the song. DO you not feel, aged
man, sometimes, as though you would like to
get your arm and foot free: Do you not
feel as though you would like to throw away
spectacleS and canes and crutches? Would
you not like to feel the spring and elias
ITCHY and mirth Of an eternal boy
hoods When the point at which you start
from this world is old age, and the point to
which you 60 is eternal juvenescence, aged
man, clap your hands at the anticipation,
and say, in perfect rapture of soul: 1.-THE
time OF MY departure is at hand"
l remark, again, all those ought to feel
osity to know what is beyond this earthly
terminus And who has not any curiosity
about it3 Paul, I suppose, had the most
view of heaven, and he says:
1T doth not yet appear what we shall be-"
1t is like looking through broken tele-
scope: Now we see through a glass
darkly.' Can you tell me anything about
that heavenly place You ask me
thousand questions about it that l cannot
answer. | ask you thousand questions
about it that you cannot answer. And do
you wonder that Paul was so glad when
gave him chance to go over
and make discoveries in that blessed
hope some day, by the grace of God, to go
over and see for myself; but not now. No
well man, no prospered man, think, wants
to go now. But the time will come, I think,
when I shall go over. l want to see
what they do there, and l want to see
how they do it. 1 do not want to be look
want them to swing Open There are
10, 900 things l want exp!ained-about you,
about myself, about the government
Of this world, about God, about
We start in plain
path Of what we know, and in a
minute come up against high wall of
what we do not know. wonder how it
ooSs over there. Somebody tells me it is
like a paved city-paved with gold; and
al ,c1 1i1-n fosy
and it is like tree, and it is like tri-
unphal procession, and the next man I
meet tells ME it is all fgurative. I really
want to know, after the body is resur-
rected, what they wear and what they
eat and | have an immeaSurable curiosity
to know what it is, and how it is, and
where it is. Columbus risked his life to
fud this continent, and shall we shudder
to go out on voyage of discovery which
shall reveal vaster and more different
country John a5 Franklin risked sdt,vla his
cebergs, and shall we dread to find q pas
sage to eternal summer? Men in Swift
zerland travel lip the heights of the Mat
terhorn with alpenstock and guides and
rockets and ropes, and getting half way
up. stumble and fall down in terrible
massacre. They just want to say they
bad been on the tops of those high peaks.
And shall we fear to go out for the ascent
If the eternal hills, which start a thou
sand miles beyond where stop the highest
peaks of the Alps, and when in that as
,ent there is no peril? A man doomed to
lie stepped on the scaffold and said in joy:
Now, in ten minutes I will know the
sreat secret.n One minute after the vital
functions ceased the little child that died last
hight in Montague street knew more than
Jonathan Edwards, or st. Paul him.
'elf, before he died Friends, the exit from
his world, or death, if you please to call
t, to the Christian is glorious expla-
nation. 1t is demonstration. 1t is Ilu-
of all the windows. 1t is shutting up
the catechism Of doubt and the unrolling
of all the scrolls of positive and ac-
curate information. Instead Of stand
ing at the foot OF the lad Ter and looking
up, it is standing at the top of the
ladder and looking down. 1t is the last
mystery taken out of botany, and geology,
and astronomy, and theology. Oh, will it
not be grand to have ali questions an
swered! The pelpetually recurring inter
rogaJion point changed for the mark Of
exclamation. All riddles solved Who
will fear to so out on that discovery when all
the questions are to be decided which we have
been discussing all our lives! Who shall not
clap his hands in the anticipation OF that
blessed country, tit be no better than through
holy curiosity. crying: The time of my de-
parture is at hand:"
remark, again, we ought to have the JOY of
the text, because, leaving this world we move
into the best society of the universe. You see
great crowd of people in some street, and
you say: "Who is passing there. What Con-
eral, what Prince is going up therem Well,
see great throng in heaven. 1 say: "Who
is the focus of all that admiration! Who
is the centre of that glittering company"
1t is Jesus, the champion of all worlds, the